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Thursday, November 29, 2007

I got the red team go on book four, so that's taken care of. The even better news is that Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night will feature a sneak peek of my next series, Lightworld/Darkworld. More on that series to come later.

The really awesome thing is that this is the first time I've had a sneak peek of anything in the back of one of my books. It's pretty exciting.

That's about all I've got for today. Keep it real, yo.

PS. There is a doctor on Dr. Phil (not Dr. Phil) whose skin is so perfect and glowing that he looks like a vinyl doll. Also, I love when Dr. Phil gets so mad that he shakes, and today is a show about obesity in children, so I am in LUCK.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Because Tez Miller called my husband Mr. Jen, I will now call my husband Mr. Jen. It's like Mr. Turkey, only made of human meat instead of turkey meat.

Things have been crizazy at the Jen and Mr. Jen house. On Monday night we had two completely unrelated deaths in the family (one on his side, one on mine), at almost exactly the same time. It would have been more easily explained if they were riding together in a car or a plane or a hovercraft, but they both just happened to die on the same night, at nearly the same time. I think this is conclusive proof that DEATH is getting closer and closer, alerting me to my mortality with his creepy sense of humor.

Whenever I am faced with just such a weird occurrence that reminds me how very enormous the universe is and how very small and insignificant I am, I watch Gone With The Wind.

Gone With The Wind is really the cure for anything that ails me. Bad day? Gone With The Wind. Slammed my hand in the car door? Gone With The Wind. Syphilis? Penicillin and Gone With The Wind. G ta the O ta the Ne With The Wind.

I don't know exactly why this movie is such a comfort to me in times of philosophical distress. Maybe it's the transformation of Scarlet from vain, shallow, manipulative wilting flower to vain, shallow, manipulative tough as nails bitch that cheers me. Maybe it's the highly unrealistic depiction of the Old South as a world of gleaming white houses and weirdly happy slaves. Maybe it's Clark Gable's fake teeth. I have no clue.

Anyway, in the interest of being, you know, interesting, here is some trivia, culled from various spots on the internet, that may or my not be true. In fact, let's make this interesting. I will plant three fake items of trivia in this list, and whoever makes the first correct guess as to which ones are fake will receive something from me. You know. In the mail. It probably won't be exciting or even that cool, but you'll feel like you've won something, and that's pretty much all that counts, right?Oh, and don't go cheating and google this stuff. This is like the SATs here. The internetz is seriouz bidness.

Totally True (except for 3 things) Gone With The Wind Trivia

In Margret Mitchell's first draft of "Gone With The Wind," the character we know today as Scarlet was named Pansy.

The interior sets for the film where constructed without ceilings. They were added with matte paintings.

Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to be nominated for and win an Oscar, did not attend the Atlanta premiere of the film due to high racial tensions.

Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie, is still alive.

Scarlet's twin beaus from the first scene of the film were brothers, but not actually twins.

Vincent Price auditioned for the role of Ashley.

Gary Cooper turned down the role of Rhett Butler, because he thought the movie would be a huge flop.

If its box office receipts were adjusted for inflation, Gone With The Wind would be the fourth highest grossing movie of all time.

Because of the size of the dresses and the aspect ratio of the film, some scenes of Melanie and Scarlet were shot from the waist up to disguise the fact they weren't wearing the hoop skirts that would have put them too far apart to be in the same shot.

Gone With The Wind is a banned film in Thailand.

Margret Mitchell was paid $50,000 for the rights to her novel, and received an additional $50,000 when the production company dissolved.

The derogatory "N-word" was removed from the script when its use offended the African-American actors working on the film.

Vivian Leigh was billed fourth in the film's credits, until she won the Best Actress Oscar.

The wretching sounds Scarlet makes after digging up the turnip in the famous "With God as my witness..." scene were dubbed by Olivia de Havilland, as Vivian Leigh couldn't fake a vomiting noise.

Monday, November 26, 2007

1:15 AM Damn. Still can't sleep. ::Pokes husband:: Are you asleep? Husband says, "YES!"1:35 AM Maybe I should try to meditate.1:37 AM Did I put the smoke detector back up after I took it down to change the batteries?1:40 AM ::rummaging through coat closet:: What did I do with that damn smoke detector?1:41 AM I don't care. It's not like we're going to have a fire tonight, and I really need to get some sleep.2:35 AM Wait... was I just asleep? That's awesome!3:12 AM Whazzz... whahuh? Why am I awake again?4:40 AM Is it time to get up already? I feel as awake and alive as a new born babe, ready to face the world with-- wait, I've got two more hours to sleep.5:11 AM This is getting ridiculous.6:25 AM ::alarm goes off; snooze function engaged::6:35 AM ::alarm goes off; snooze function engaged::6:45 AM ::alarm goes off; snooze function engaged::6:55 AM How the hell did I oversleep? I've been up all night long!

And now, for your enjoyment, some leaked audio from the upcoming Sweeney Todd movie. Listen to it, before it gets pulled by the YouTube police. And don't say I never gave you anything.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I used to have an AOL account. I got tons of SPAM there. By tons, I mean almost three hundred a day. That's not an exaggeration. If I missed checking my email by one day, my inbox would have reached its limit.

So, I changed my personal email to a hotmail address. For almost two years I have been blissfully SPAM free.

Then, out of the blue, it began arriving. It started with the obvious ones: "Twin Asian girls get nasty" and "Wanna see pics of my wife?" I kicked them to my junk folder. Then, they started getting a little more creative. To escape the wrath of the junk folder, they started misspelling key words the filter would now be looking for. "Hrorny Teens Fiznuking!" and "Secksy MILF takes it all!". BAM. To the Junk Folder.

Now, they're getting deviously creative. "Your phone has been busy all day. What's going on?" I see that subject line and I don't even look at the address. I go, "Oh, that must be one of my many close and important friends. I wonder what is wrong with my phone." I open it and there it is, a link to 100% Free Girl On Girl Action.

I can't figure out how this happened. Conventional wisdom would say that if I've been visiting a lot of porn sites and entering my email to join them, that would bring on an onslaught of SPAM. But-- and this will shock many, I'm sure-- I don't look at porn on the internet. I don't go to porn websites, I don't google for porn (Food porn doesn't count. Who doesn't love a full color photo of a glistening rack of baby pork ribs, fresh from the barbecue? Stop looking at me that way. I am not ashamed). So, where is all the porn coming from?

Who are these people-- MILFmaster69@yahoo.com, CrizazyChic89@gmail.com, etc-- who are so desperate for me to see pornographic material that they would try and trick me into looking at it? Do they feel they are doing me some kind of service? Do I, through my various emails and blog posts, come across as so thirsty for titillation of any kind that I will die like a desert traveler, my t-shirt tied to my head for protection from the sun, holes worn in my jeans from the constant abrasion of the pitiless sand, my lips blistered from sunburn and windburn and sheer dehydration, if I do not see girls go wild?

Of course, I know it's nothing I did. SPAM, like Scabies, pops up suddenly and is hard to get rid of. You don't know how you got it, but you're pretty sure it was that airline blanket that you knew you shouldn't use, but it was just so cold and your air vent seemed to be stuck in the open position. Someday, the glut of SPAM will be cured, but until then, why, Lord, why was I stricken with such an affliction.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

BECAUSE I AM ENRAGED. Okay, for people who don't live in the United States, you might be unaware of the fact that next Thursday is Thanksgiving here. It is a holiday that celebrates when the puritans got here from England and went, "Oh, crap, we should have brought more food," and their American Indian neighbors came over and went, "Well, here, have some of this delicious food," and the pilgrims were like, "Thanks. Have some of this delicious small pox!"

History lesson aside, Thanksgiving is important mostly because there is a big giant parade spectacle in New York City. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I kid you not, this parade is such a big deal over here that when I was a child I thought Thanksgiving was actually called Macy's Day. So, yeah, giant parade. And while everyone waits for the parade in front of the big Macy's flagship department store near Times Square, viewers at home get to watch musical numbers from current Broadway musicals and also The Rockettes. And this year? Sarah Brightman is going to be singing on a float. And at the end, Santa Claus gets there and is like, "It's the holidays, Chumps!"

AND I'M GOING TO MISS IT. Why? Because my husband wants to have dinner with his family at noon. Which means we have to leave in the middle of the parade to get there! I'm going to miss it!

And I've missed it for the last few years to be at Thanksgiving dinners. I don't even like turkey. Or smallpox. I just want to see the parade!

Sigh. If I had some of that spiffy new DVD-R or Tivo technology, this wouldn't be an issue. But I don't, because I'm cheap and afraid of change, especially when it involves machines with artificial intelligence.

I mean, if Tivo can learn that I like Family Guy, it can learn all of my weaknesses and strike where I am more vulnerable. You can go ahead and get murdered by your Tivo. I'm playing it safe right now and right here. I'm living for the moment.

Today, in my neck (finger? palm?) of the woods, AKA the great mitten state, it is the first day of firearm deer season.

Perhaps I worded that incorrectly. The deer don't have guns, nor are they made of guns, as I might have implied. But it's the first day you can hunt deer with a firearm.

I did it again, implying the deer have guns.

Anyway, I'm not hunting. Why? Because I have a February deadline. That's right. My JOB is getting in the way of what I want to do in my FREE TIME. The next person who says I don't have a job can explain to my editor why all my emails are suddenly coming from a tree stand in the woods.

I was pretty bummed about the no hunting development. For the past two years, I've been trying to get my butt out there to kill a living creature, but to no avail. However, when I look out at today's weather, I rejoice that I am not sitting in a blind somewhere freezing my carharts off.

It is snowing. Well, kind of. It's also raining. So really, it's snaining. Or rowing, I'm not sure. And it is miserable.

So, instead of climbing a ladder and tying myself to a tree in the hopes of spotting that elusive thirty point buck, I'm spending my morning at Fourth Coast, downing skim milk double lattes with sugar free caramel syrup and being, in general, warm and dry.

Alright, dear readers, what comforts dost thou turn to when the gales of November come wailing?

Cool, I just mixed faux Shakespeare with Gordon Lightfoot. My two favorite bards!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

I hate when I can't find the right music to write a certain project to. I'm knee deep in "Lightworld/Darkworld" and I'm trying to find the correct balance between new age, Enya-type music and industrial metal. The closest I've gotten is the soundtrack from "300," which is great, but it's distracting to keep thinking of Gerry Butler and his rock hard, chiseled abs. Mmm...abs.

Anyway, it's frustrating. Nightwish is getting some moderate representation on my LW/DW playlist, and I'm crossing my fingers that Sarah Brightman's 2008 album, which is supposed to be classical done to goth metal, comes out before I have to have all the books turned in. But holy moly, what do I do in the meantime?

Anyone have some good recommendations for music that says, "This is steeped in various mythologies, but mostly Celtic lore, and also there is lots of blood shed"?

Now, for your viewing pleasure, "Greased Lightnin'" done claymation style, and also there is a humping robot. NSFW, NSFChildren.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

With the Blood Ties series almost officially over for me, I am gearing up for a new project. I've been so excited to work on something brand new, something fresh, something....

I've already written before.

Back when I was shopping the first Blood Ties book around, I wrote a different book. I started writing it while I was a board member for a different RWA chapter and we were on a retreat that turned into DRA-MA. To ignore where I was and how much I just wanted to go home, I started working on a completely different story, set in a completely different universe. It was about a half-faery assassin who lived underground, in the sewers of a future earth that had become an alternate world for faerytale and nightmare creatures. I wrote the whole book in probably three months. Now, I'm rewriting it as part of a trilogy that will be released in 2009.

The problem? It's not new to me. I already know how the story ends, so I don't have the fun of discovery that usually fuels me to keep writing.

A lot of people ask how I battle writer's block. "Jen," the ask, seeking the wisdom of a sage, "how do you battle writer's block?" The answer is: I just don't know.

It's not that I don't get blocked. Every writer gets to a point when they have nothing to say in their manuscript. My personal way to solve this is to just push past it. Even if what I'm writing is uninspired crap (as it often is), I can always fix it later.

Here's the thing: if you're sitting down at the computer every day, looking at the last two lines you wrote six days ago and you have no idea how to proceed, you're going to get burned out faster than if you just force yourself to keep going. You might have to just write [blah blah blah this is what happens in the rest of this scene] and go back to it later, but you have to keep your forward momentum.

It seems to me that there is a lot of fear involved in writing. Fear of writer's block, fear of burn out, fear of not being perfect on your first try, fear of rejection, it's all stupid. How come I have never once heard about someone having a fear of not finishing their manuscript, or a fear of getting a huge contract and being crushed under a pile of money?

Now, I'm going to go back to myself as an example. My editor and agent agree that the next step in my career involves a book I've already written, but that needs a major overhaul from the ground up. I could have said, "No, I'm afraid I'll get burned out," but instead, I'm forcing myself through a story I've already told. I'm I afraid I'll get burned out? Meh. It's a possibility. But will burnout on one project mean that I will never write again? No. Plus, after this book is done, I'll have the sequel to write, so I have something to look forward to.

And that might be the key to getting over the fear of writer's block and burnout. If you have something to look forward to, that's going to help vault you over the hurdles you come up against.

Now, as for other writing problems, like people thinking you don't have a real job because you work at home or people thinking you have tons of money to give them for no good reason (you know, people like your kids and spouse), that I can't help you with. But as someone with no attention span and very little persistence, I can say with certainty that if I can get over writer's block and burnout, pretty much anyone, including several species of monkey and lemur can, as well.

Monday, November 12, 2007

My local RWA chapter, GRRRWA, had a fantastic guest speaker this weekend. A policeman. Not to sound like a five year old who just saw a fire truck parked at the neighbors house, but seriously, he was a real policeman with a gun and a taser and a badge and everything. No horse or motorcycle, but all the rest of the stuff.

Now, if you're like me, you can sympathize with the urge to, when meeting someone in a profession you have very little knowledge of, ask as many questions as you possibly can, even if you sound incredibly stupid. I do this with the following people:

Pilots

Doctors

Football players

Members of our Armed Forces

Senators, state or otherwise

Meteorologists

Policemen

People who like to golf.

And I can't stop the questions from flowing out my word hole. I asked him who cleans up murdered people. How much sweet, stinky weed you can get caught with before it becomes a felony. How they wrestle people down and handcuff them. What cops would think if Batman and Spiderman were real. I just barely restrained myself from asking if he'd ever been shot and if he would taser me so I could see what it was like.

Needless to say, I learned a lot. The most disappointing answer was that if Spiderman and Batman were real, they really wouldn't be doing the police any favors, because the police couldn't just pick up a guy wrapped up in a web and charge him with a crime they didn't see. Which makes sense, I guess, but damn. I can't believe I've lived my whole life as a lie.

Anyway, I was thinking. This is a golden opportunity to answer some burning questions I know people must have about being a writer. So, I'm going to attempt to do that right now:

Top Ten Answers To Questions Frequently Asked Of Writers:

Not as much as you'd think, and certainly not enough to support my lifestyle, which is fabulous.

You have to use stilts, because it's up really high.

Tomorrow.

Yes, that does look infected.

No, it would be foolish to remove the restraining bolt, as it is likely that your droid will just run away.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

I kid you not, that is, if not a direct quote, a close approximation of what one of the vampires in 30 Days Of Night says while they're hunting and killing the residents of a small Alaskan town.

This movie deserves some kind of award for most awesome vampires. I'm going to give it to them right now. "The Jennifer Armintrout Award For Excellence In The Field Of Spraying Blood And Vampires Being Thrown Into Giant Wood Chippers" is hereby presented to 30 Days Of Night. They also receive the lesser known, but just as prestigious, "Jennifer Armintrout Award For Best Film In Which An Enraged Mountain Man Resembling Hagrid Drives A Giant Saw Machine Through A Crowd Of Vampires".

This was one of those movies where they would show some machine or vehicle and you'd be like, "Oh, I just know that is going to come into play later, and I cannot WAIT!" Like the huge wood chipper thing. I sat on the edge of my seat, wondering when, in a spray of blood and much flailing and screaming, a vampire was gonna get tossed into it. I was not disappointed.

I'm not even ruining key plot points here for you, because the thing is, the first fifteen minutes are like a road map to what is going to happen later. "Giant wood chipper? You know someone is getting thrown into that! Chainsaw you can drive? Oh man, that is going to be excellent."

The only way this movie could have been better is if the vampires from it somehow got into the movie Across The Universe and they ate all of those stupid hippies. They'd be like, protesting the Vietnam War and giving a passing nod to the civil rights movement, holding hands and singing "All You Need Is Love" and BAM! Vampires. Eating them. Spraying their patchouli scented blood all over the psychedelic ground.

And during the previews, I almost wet my pants. Not because I sneezed too hard. Oh no. Because there is another Aliens Vs. Predator movie coming out this Christmas. Sorry, Johnny Depp, but the Yajuta top demon barbers every time. I know how my movie money is going to be spent this Christmas. Wisely.

That would be another good movie, if the vampires from 30 Days Of Night fought the Predators.

So, with all the tons of movies coming out in the next few months, what is everyone excited to see? My next must-see is "Enchanted", the one where a Disney Princess gets sucked into real life.

Because, regardless of my enthusiasm for spraying blood and flying vampire chunks, I'm nothing if not a princess at heart.

Monday, November 5, 2007

This morning, for reasons I won't go into right now, I had to go back to my old high school for like, two seconds. And God bless her, the office lady remembered who I was. I was like, "What? That was like ten years ago," and she said, "You look the same."

Figuring I was on a roll, I went to, and am now blogging from, the coffee house where I spent a lot of my time trying to get picked up by college guys when I was a teenager. Granted, I'm no longer trying to get picked up by college guys, but not a lot has changed here. Everyone still basically looks miserable and/or too smart for their own good, the music is like, weird and obscure and sounds like something rejected from the reality bites soundtrack, and the air is so smokey I'm actually considering bumming a cigarette from someone just to get a filter between me and the roiling cancer on the air.

Actually, that's a lie. I have my own cigarettes. I don't smoke, but I do carrying around some expensive cigarettes as a status symbol. I like to go into pro-smoking establishments and sit down and take out my Dunhills or what have you and pretend to smoke one or two, leaving the pack out for all to see, as if to say, "Look how important I am. I smoke fifteen dollar cigarettes." It's just one of a number of little mind games I like to play with the world at large.

Anyway, in honor of my trip down memory lane, I'm going to post the top ten little known facts about coffee shops.

Top Ten Little Known Facts About Coffee Shops1. Everyone knows that coffee shops are a good place to score weed, but what they probably don't know is that it's also a good place to score absinthe.

2. Coffee house etiquette demands that for every hour you spend loitering at the counter, you must wash a part of the barista's car.

3. Ha ha, just kidding. Baristas don't have cars. They ride bikes, because they're hippies and they care about the earth and stuff.

Friday, November 2, 2007

On Fridays, my husband is responsible for ferrying the child back and forth to school. In between school and home, he usually picks us up some lunch at the only fast food restaurant I will eat at. I will not name it because I am still loyal to them, but it rhymes with schmickschmonalds.

Well, today, as I'm enjoying my golden, delicious fries for which schmickschmonalds is so famous, I find...

wait for it...

a crispy fried wing. Not from a chicken. From a common house fly.

Very few things will gross me out to the point that I'm no longer able to eat. Once, when I was eating a piece of cherry pie my grandmother had made, I found a whole housefly baked into it. My grandma just wicked him away with her pinky finger and said "Eh, he didn't eat much," and I finished eating. Because I was raised by people who honestly believed the presence of bugs in your food was a funny, unexpected bonus. I think that's because they grew up in the depression or whatever and they probably were used to eating bugs.

However, having worked at a schmickschmonalds, I know what happens when a bug falls into the deep fryer. KA-BLAMO! They explode, spewing their soon to be crunchy, golden guts all over the place. ALL OVER MY FRIES.

I just couldn't finish. A whole fly, I can do. Fly parts... yeck.

What is the worst thing you've ever found in your food, either at a fast food place or a regular restaurant?

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I love that my readers want to buy my books out of support/curiosity. Any books I have written will be under Jennifer Armintrout/Abigail Barnette/Jenny Trout. I have no other pen names, and books without those names on them were not written by me, even if the spelling is really, really close.

Heads up, Dear Reader

This is the official blog of Jenny Trout, writer, swearer, and all around obscene person. Under the name Jennifer Armintrout, I wrote USA Today Bestselling fantasy/urban fantasy/paranormal romance. Under the pseudonym Abigail Barnette, I write award-winning romance and erotic romance, both historical and contemporary.

What you can expect to find here in 2013:

Chapter-by-chapter recaps of 50 Shades Freed

Updates on my free online erotic romance serial, The Boss

An in-depth re-watch of the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The occasional post about cake

Lots of swearing

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I'm mentally ill!

I suffer from depression, anxiety, OCD, OTD, and self-harm. Do you? Don't be embarrassed about it, okay? It's not your fault.

I find that when I'm down, I can stave off a total crash by listening to music. This is the music that helps me. Maybe it will help you, too. This is my "Get The @#$% Out Of Here, Depression!" playlist on Spotify.